Mammoth Blog

Ryan Howard was dressed in red on Wednesday, only it wasn't his Philadelphia Phillies uniform.

Howard, the 2006 NL MVP, donned a skintight, high-tech red suit dotted with 55 sensors to have his motions captured for MLB '08 The Show. The slugger will be on the cover of the video game, which will be released March 4 for PlayStation2, PlayStation3 and PlayStation Portable.

Wearing the red suit definitely stood out for Howard.

"I mean, there's pictures and I'll have to go around and confiscate cameras and all kinds of stuff," Howard joked. "It was an experience, the motion capture."

The sensors were placed on all of Howard's flex points so 42 cameras, shooting at 120 frames per second, could correctly capture his motions. The work was done at Sony Computer Entertainment America's San Diego Motion Capture Studio.

"It's definitely an honor, because I remember when I was 15 and playing video games, being in college and playing video games, making yourself up as a character on the actual game," the first baseman said. "I always thought that if I made it to the big leagues, I'd actually be in a video game. I thought that was the coolest thing that when I got called up in '04, in '05, the next year, I was in a video game.

"It was definitely something cool for me for Sony to call me up and ask me to be on the cover of MLB '08 The Show. I think it just took it over the top," said Howard, the NL Rookie of the Year in 2005. source